With the number of confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way rising, we will have to be choosier about the targets we select for looking for signs of life.
Several factors influence a star's UV output, including its metallicity and temperature. Shapiro and her team modeled Earth-like worlds orbiting Sun-like stars, tweaking the parameters that would influence UV radiation to see what effect that would have on the orbiting exoplanet.
They found that metallicity was more important than temperature in influencing the habitability of the exoplanet, but in a way that was totally opposite to what might be assumed. The lower metallicity stars, with more UV radiation, were likelier to have habitable worlds. That's because the way the UV radiation interacted with the oxygen in the atmosphere created a better shield, resulting in less of that radiation reaching the surface of the exoplanet.
"Paradoxically, whereas stars with higher metallicity, which have appeared later in the history of the Universe, emit less UV radiation, in oxygenated planetary atmospheres the associated stellar radiative spectrum allows less Oformation, which enhances UV penetration, making the conditions on planets orbiting these stars less friendly for the biosphere on land,""We thus find that the surface of planets orbiting metal-rich stars is exposed to more intense UV radiation than the...
It's not enough to be able to rule out higher metallicity stars just yet. But the analysis and characterization of exoplanet atmospheres with instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope will help scientists figure out if their findings are along the right path, bringing us one tiny step closer to finding signs of life on an alien world.
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